


Precious Messiah

by PlayerProphet



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Bathing/Washing, Gen, Gen Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-30
Updated: 2011-12-30
Packaged: 2017-10-28 12:42:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/307989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PlayerProphet/pseuds/PlayerProphet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Her feet are burned red on the top and bottom, the sand scarring her with sunlight twice. Little hairline fractures mark her exoskeleton with time and wear. With the utmost caution and care, you pick hard bits of sand out from the cracks of her right foot before placing a kiss on the bridge to her ankle.</p><p>She has never failed at anything.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Precious Messiah

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Fenyatan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fenyatan/gifts).



> I didn't tag it shippy but you're welcome to read it shippy because I ship it. I ship it like FedEx. I hope you like it!
> 
> Here's a [playlist](http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL64BBA4DFE61AA100)!

She became the queen in duty years ago when she took the ring. She asked for it out of necessity. For delivery. And you gave it to her for hope. It was your duty to protect and wear it, but you saw in her a fierce determination that you could not meet. She stood before you as a meek, timid girl with the spirit of a hero. She needed to be the one who had that ring.

All the legends of Prospit fortell glorious battles, child heroes, gods and saviors. When the gods arrive to cleanse the lands, it will be too late for the golden moon. It is your duty as Queen to do what you can to change things. The battle has been fought a thousand times and will be fought a thousand more. Every slight variation in the process of time might be the one thing that resolves it all at last. And at the very least, will result in the same oncoming destruction.

She will change everything. This, you know somehow. Perhaps simply by her arrival.

You slip the ring off of your finger and the attributes it gives you go back into the stones that line it. The tentacles that curl from your sides disappear, as do your impressive wings. You place the ring into her palm and choose to trust her.

She retrieves the crown from the king on the battlefield. Prospitian troops are defenseless. Derse succeeds.

She’s done so well.

\--

She doesn’t want it, she says. She’s not a leader. She just wants to deliver the mail. She’s tossed her makeshift mailbox crown (a desecration of a symbol of hope, she says, which you find rather ironic) into the sand. It’s stupid, she says. The crown. Being Queen. There’s nothing even to rule.

The people need a leader, you tell her. The people need a guide, no matter how many nor how few. She doesn’t feel like a leader, she says. She doesn’t feel important enough to guide anyone. You tell her this is precisely the reason she is the leader. She is humble, kind, and tenacious. She is effective and driven. She has never failed at anything.

She squirms when you say these things.

She was so effective, so determined that she single-handedly destroyed your kingdom. You don’t tell her that or she won’t look you in the eyes, but she inspires you.

As the Queen, people look to you for guidance. You are omnipresent, patient and kind. You are effective, a warrior, an advocate. At least, you were those things. You were _supposed_ to be those things, but the hero in the tales who rises up to fight for peace is never the powers that be. It is the smallest ones, the little people, the farmers, the mail men who give the people hope when the end approaches.

For her, you will step to the side. She will be all that she is; a postal mistress, a peregrine mendicant, and a prospitan monarch. She will take the crown from you and perhaps, win something back for Prospit or the desert wasteland they occupy.

You wish you could take something back from her. Pull the weight from her shoulders. But she is the queen now and you are the peasant, and she hangs on to the mail system so tightly in her heart that no amount of prying could take it away from her. You wouldn’t want to. As far as she’s concerned, that’s all she is.

She’s tall, slouched and sunburned, the back of her hands speckled, her fingers cracked and dry. It’s a testament to her tenacity and her bravery, if bravery is going ever forward without looking back.

You take her hands in your own and run your thumb gently across her knuckle caps. She trembles, a little bit afraid of not behaving properly for you. A little bit afraid she might hit you, you think. She stares with wide shining eyes as you raise her hand to your mouth and kiss it, bending to bow before her.

\---

All they have to drink are cans of gravy and Tab which is some kind of sugary stuff that makes the mayor more excited than usual. He’s a passionate little man capable of leading people, but he is afraid. He has nightmares. He’ll make a wonderful advisor to her. A representative, perhaps.

You return to the egg that you arrived in to retrieve the most precious thing you have, laying sideways in the corner, seemingly forgotten (the perfect way to truly hide something). It’s a bottle of spring water, naked and stripped of it’s label but flecked with the remnants of white paper. You’ve been carrying it with you for months, saving it for a crucial moment when it could save your life.

You take it to her.

She sits at the fire someone made, hood and mask in place to hide her head and face. All around her are the mailboxes she’s collected, symbols of her former life. A testament to a world once right. The crown sits next to her. Nearby, the aimless renegade is cleaning his guns and the mayor is meticulously organizing his can city in the sand. The small dersite spots the bottle in your hand and turns his attention to you as you kneel before your monarch.

She looks away.

Her feet are burned red on the top and bottom, the sand scarring her with sunlight twice. Little hairline fractures mark her exoskeleton with time and wear. With the utmost caution and care, you pick hard bits of sand out from the cracks of her right foot before placing a kiss on the bridge to her ankle.

The water is warm but always comes as a shock. You pour it sparingly over her sun dyed foot and the mayor squawks with betrayal until the head of security in yellow pulls him into a headlock. She watches you now as you wash the dirt from her shell, taking it onto your hands instead.

You have no soap for her, no soft-scented oils. You have no cloth to wipe her clean, no towels to wipe her dry and save her damp foot from further dirt. You have nothing but your royalty to give to her. Your reign and the last remnants of real clean water to anoint her feet.

You use every drop of it on her, the far more precious thing.

**Author's Note:**

> This was largely inspired by, well, the prompt. But there was a lot of discussion about PM's new name after Cascade in the PM tag on tumblr. One art of her was accompanied by [something] messiah. I forget what the first word was but I'm a sucker for religious stuff. I hope you don't mind, Fenyatan! I've been dying to write some carapaces. Thank you so much!


End file.
